In the prior art, a variety of different devices and instruments are disclosed which are adapted for the cutting, holding, incision and removal of tissue in a region of very limited volume, such as in parts of the eye or in regions of the nervous system. The state of the art is exemplified by the following U.S. Pat. Nos.:
______________________________________ 3,528,425 4,436,091 3,844,272 4,530,356 4,099,529 4,602,630 4,320,761 4,672,965 4,368,734 4,689,040 ______________________________________
While such prior art devices provide improvements in the areas intended, there is still a great need for a microsurgical cutting apparatus which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, is of simple construction and provides great precision in operation. Especially, there is a need for apparatus that can be discarded after a single procedure without incurring inordinate expense.
In general, most of the surgical apparatus presently available are extremely expensive to design and fabricate and become dull fairly quickly, usually after only a few uses. Surgeons using such devices have had to have the cutting edges sharpened. They have found that frequently such sharpened cutting edges do not provide adequate cutting after sharpening. Thus, a surgical apparatus that is reliably sharp, inexpensive to produce and disposable is highly advantageous in the art.
Accordingly, a principal object of the present invention is to provide a microsurgical cutting apparatus which is compact, efficient, relatively inexpensive and disposable.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a microsurgical cutting apparatus that has a unique geometry of the shafts.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved apparatus to be inserted in an incision in the eye so that a variety of accessory instruments can be introduced into the eye also to form a variety of surgical techniques.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide an improved cutting apparatus and a method of fabricating such devices.
These and other desirable objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the following specifications when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the appended claims.